Thank you for identifying all these unnerving parallels with Hitler’s career. It sometimes seems as if the Don is consciously modeling his rise to power on that of his German role model. I am terrified of what’s coming next. As Shakespeare puts it in King Lear, “the worst is not/So long as we can say ‘this is the worst.’”
We are careening down a long, dark vortex into bloody tyranny, I fear.